Last week Gay and I went to the annual huge tuba concert downtown. It must be every tuba in New England! They get together in the morning and practice a few Christmas songs, then break for lunch, and then come back to oom-pah-pah for the public.

It's not the most musical thing in the world, but it certainly is impressive. More than a hundred tubas -- "members of the tuba family," I should say, because it includes baritone horns and such -- blasting away in an echoing corridor between two big brick buildings. Awesome!